


We Bleed A Different Way

by SeraphHT



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Banter, Danse caring for SoSu, Danse discovering about periods, F/M, Gen, One Shot, idk what else to tag lmfao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24388441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeraphHT/pseuds/SeraphHT
Summary: Danse has never heard of periods before, so the Sole Survivor tells him about it. Too bad there aren't any tampons in the post-apocalyptic world.
Relationships: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor, Paladin Danse/Sole Survivor (Fallout)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	We Bleed A Different Way

**Author's Note:**

> This seems like the kind of fill for a prompt on the kinkmeme. Tbh I always wondered what women in the Fallout universe did when their time of the month came. This is just my take on it.

She looked down at the raider. He was a pool of blood; knife no longer grasped tightly in his hand. No signs of movement. He was already dead.

She was breathing hard, eyes livid, but even the rush wasn’t enough to stop the sudden sharp pain in her abdomen. “Fuck,” she breathed, pressing a hand against her stomach. She looked down, expecting to see a stab wound, but there was nothing there.

It had happened quite a few times already. Sometimes there were very sharp pains, sometimes just a pounding in her lower back or below her belly button. Initially she assumed she was just sleeping wrong, but with each day and increasing pain, she knew very well what it was.

Right now, the pain and adrenaline combined was so intense it nearly blinded her. If her spine was ever to be crushed one day, this was what it felt like.

Looking back, she saw Danse had taken care of the other raiders while she was wrestling with the one who jumped her.

“Injured, soldier?” he asked.

“Not my blood,” she replied, almost grounded out. It took so much energy to say things. She looked down at her bloodied arms and sleeves, red from bludgeoning the raider to death. “Fuck, I need a sink.”

The store was dark and nearly choked her with the dust, but she had come here in hopes of finding the supplies she needed. Disappointing she only found enemies instead.

Nearly tripping over the bodies and debris, June finally found the staff room at the back of the store, complete with an adjoining toilet. She hastily twisted the tap, discoloured water pouring into her free hand as the other clutched tightly against her lower stomach.

Danse stood just outside the door. “You’re holding your abdomen,” he observed. “Did the raider stab you?”

She washed the blood off her leather apparel, breaths laced with pain. “No, I’m fine.”

“You’re obviously in pain.”

“I think you’d be surprised to know this usually happens every month, but let’s just say I haven’t felt it in a while,” she let out a joyless laugh, cut short by a hiss of pain. She turned off the running water, arms on the sink as she leaned her weight forward, face down and eyes closed.

It felt like her bones were rotting away in her own body.

“Could you help… maybe find some cloth?” she asked, lifting her head a little to meet Danse’s eyes, face scrunched in pain. It was a great effort to talk. “Maybe a towel of some sort. Tried looking for it just now… but got jumped.”

“Right,” Danse nodded, slightly puzzled at the other’s condition. Nevertheless, he trudged off.

June could feel her body secreting something. Grimacing, she unbuckled the clasps around her pants, every ache intensifying as she bent down to peel the clothes off her legs. And there, inside, she saw the red stains.

“Damn… why now?” she seethed, looking down at her inner thighs. Both sides were slightly stained red, but not nearly as red as the patch she could see seeping through her underwear. She slipped a hand inside, and saw the thick blood cling to her fingers. Not some flesh wound, that’s for sure. Fuck if that wasn’t a hassle to clean up.

Searching for period products wasn’t exactly a priority, especially since her period had been absent after she left the vault. It had been months now. After the initial weariness of ensuring she wasn’t pregnant, she wrote it off as a side-effect of being frozen for centuries. Yet the blood between her legs now was blatant proof her ovaries were still working right.

The pain was now a far-away, steady but still prominent throbbing in her abdomen, and her knees were a little weak. She kicked the pants off her ankles and got the sink running again.

“The only cloth in this area...” Danse’s words died at the tip of his tongue, surprised to see the bare legs of his companion. She was leaning into her arms; her hair cascaded down and covered her face.

Perplexed, he reprimanded. “You should get some clothes on.”

“I will,” she looked at him, a somewhat apologetic smile on her lips. It was half-hearted as she winced at another sharp ache. “So… cloth?”

“Scavenged it off the enemy,” he handed her a worn-down shirt, which must have once belonged to one of the raiders.

She took it from him, and even though Danse didn’t mean to look down, the dark red between her legs was a stark contrast to her fair skin. His eyes visibly widened in surprise. “Did you suffer an internal injury?”

“No, it’s just… blood,” she shrugged it off casually, every movement masking a great pain. With her teeth and hands, she tore the worn shirt into strips and used some as wipes to clean the blood around her inner thighs.

Danse knew he should look away, but couldn’t. Not out of interest, but more of curiosity. The place where she was bleeding… it had to hurt in a region so sensitive. “How did the enemy hurt you there?”

“What?” she arched a brow, confused at first, but then noticed Danse was staring pointedly at her crotch. “Oh. An enemy didn’t do this to me.”

He met her eyes. “Then?”

“It just happens,” she said, washing the blood-stained cloth strips. “The one that women experience every month.”

“I’ve never seen you like this before.”

“Well, it hasn’t happened in a while,” she remarked, checked her inventory and found her spare undergarments, then looked back at him, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Um… could you look away for a second?”

Only now realizing he had been staring, Danse swallowed his embarrassment and quickly turned around. “Is this a sort of medical condition?” he asked.

“You could say that,” she replied, removing her underwear and placing it under the running water. She cleaned herself thoroughly. “All women who can bear children will experience this every month, if their cycle is normal. It’s called period.”

Danse was silent for a while. “My soldiers have never complained about this… period.”

“It affects every woman a little differently.” Or maybe most women these days were infertile. She wasn’t sure how the bombs have changed human biology over the years. “My periods used to cause me some really crippling pain.”

It had been so long, and with the shock of everything else, she almost forgot how bad her menstrual cramps could get. It was like being reintroduced to new level of pain she had once conquered. Even worse when it hit right before the raider jumped her. The only reason she beat him to death with her pistol was because the crippling pain messed her awareness so bad, she couldn’t bring herself to reload.

“Blood just exits your body?” Danse couldn’t really understand.

“Yes,” she said, slightly amused as she secured some strips around the base of her underwear as a makeshift pad. Wasn’t very sanitary or leak-proof, but it was the best she could do. “For an average of seven days. Some women can have it for two weeks.”

“Losing blood continuously… sounds very inconvenient.”

“Yeah,” she said, almost absent-mindedly as she slowly bent over to pull the underwear up her hips. She stared at her other set of leather armour, frowning at the thought of buckling the thing on her aching body. “I need to rest for just while.”

Ensuring she was appropriately covered, she sat down on a sofa just outside the door. Leather seats weren’t what it used to be, but damned if she didn’t feel her body just melt into that sofa. Her aching knees were grateful for the weight taken off of them, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Danse stood just a small distance away, watching her procure a bottle of water. “Is there any way to stop this bleeding?” he asked. Hard to imagine under those clothes she was just secreting blood.

June thought about it as she took a sip. “Well, I could always get pregnant.”

“That’s… not practical,” Danse looked down, not expecting her bluntness. “You appear to be in great discomfort.”

“It’s bearable for now, but sometimes it can be really crippling,” she grimaced. “I used to have pills for those.”

“So… just now, during the raider ambush?”

“I was in the middle of one of those cramps when he attacked me,” she shook her head, almost in pity at the man who tried to wrestle her. “The pain messes with my perception most times.”

“You still bludgeoned him to death,” Danse remarked, almost impressed. “That takes a lot of strength for somebody who’s bleeding out herself.”

She laughed. “Didn’t have the option to ask him nicely to stop killing me.”

“Hm. If this period happens so often, why didn’t you prepare for it earlier?”

“It hasn’t happened since I left the vault, which was a long time ago. I thought it was a side-effect, but now it’s pretty obvious my body was just in shock. And now, it’s coming back.”

The searing pain returned suddenly, like her guts were forming knots in her stomach. She hissed and pressed a hand tightly into her side, leaning against the arm of the sofa. “Fuck… just… give me a moment.”

Danse felt absolutely helpless. “I’ve never seen any of my own soldiers like this.”

“Maybe they’re used to it. I haven’t felt this pain for a while so… it’s pretty new to me for now,” she murmured, eyebrows knit closely together. “I’ll suck it up in an hour or so. Not like… I have a choice.”

“This period doesn’t seem to affect my Brotherhood sisters at all.”

She laughed a pained laugh. “Exactly… what I meant.”

Danse was quiet for some time, surprised at this new piece of information. It left him slightly awed. He always heard of something that caused women pain, but he had written it off as a biological function that made men superior to women. He was right about biological function, but he had been sorely wrong about women being weaker.

“Why isn’t knowledge of this condition widespread?”

“Well, if she’s a lady… she’d probably know,” she spoke with her eyes closed, voice slightly muffled against the sofa. “But men… well. It used to be a taboo thing to talk about… looks like it still is.”

He could only imagine the pain of losing blood for over a week while out on missions. He had seen men bleed out from flesh wounds, but his female soldiers had been just casually losing blood under their armour all this time? He wondered why he lacked knowledge on it. This subject simply wasn’t talked about in the Brotherhood. Maybe it wasn’t deemed important enough for him to know.

Seeing his companion writhing in pain now was even more discomforting that he could do nothing to help. June wasn’t paying attention to him, just the pain that racked her body and the uncomfortable wetness between her legs.

“Would kill… for a heating patch right about now,” she chuckled to herself.

Breathing in deeply, she tried her best to even out her heartbeat to cope with the cramps, coiled in a fetal position and leaned against the sofa’s arm. The pain was always so bad on the first and second day. She just had to hold out a little longer. Besides, it was nothing new.

Just then, Danse put a hand on her shoulder. Head against the sofa’s arm, she opened her eyes slowly, jaw tense in coping with the pain. He was kneeling in front of her, holding out what looked like some cooked meat.

“You’re losing blood,” he stated. “You should eat.”

Although it didn’t show on her face, she was surprised by this act of kindness. Without a word, she did as he told, with much effort but gratefully. It was exactly what she needed after all, to replenish the blood in her body.

Danse stood back up and maintained his respectful distance, watching her carefully. She ate for nearly half an hour, forcing herself to swallow despite the lack of appetite, then washed it down with bottled water.

“Thank you,” she said with a small smile, when she was done. “The worst of it is gone for now. It’s just a dull feeling now.”

“Good,” he nodded. “I put some Buffout in the meat.”

She surely wasn’t expecting that. “Oh.”

“I’ve never tried it myself, but I figured it could lessen the pain.”

“…I thought you disapproved of chems.”

“They were made for medical purposes,” he responded. “I’m not trained in medicine, but… this seemed an appropriate occasion. There was not much I could help besides that. It was like watching a comrade suffer an internal injury.”

She was silent for some time, looking up at him. Since Nate, she hadn’t felt this sort of care from anybody. “Thank you,” she said, quietly. “You’re very kind.”

“Anything to help,” he nodded, eyes meeting hers. “It’s difficult not to respect your endurance.”

Despite the darkness, she thought she saw empathy in his eyes. He looked away after some moments of silence. “I’ll be outside when you’re ready to move.”

“That might take some time.”

“Don’t worry, take all the time you need,” he replied. “In the meantime, I’ll try to scavenge as much cloth and water as I can. It seems you’ll be using a lot of those in the near future.”

She let out a small laugh, slightly amused at his enthusiasm. A part of her felt bad about letting him do that, but she rather liked his concern.

It was the closest thing she’d ever feel to being pampered, and there was certainly no harm in letting him do _that_.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that mildly amused you, at least. Do leave some kudos and thank you for reading!


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